The present invention relates generally to monitoring, maintaining and optimizing end-to-end user quality delivered to a mobile customer in a wireless communication system. More specifically, the invention relates to internal monitoring system level quality and processing of a mobile device.
A conceptual network “user-plane” carries user traffic such as voice, video, streaming data, SMS, MMS, over the many diverse nodes in the wireless network. The quality of the service supplied over the user-plane directly impacts the business case of the wireless carrier. Superior communication quality extends average call times and revenue, while poor communication quality decreases user satisfaction. Service adoption, usage and penetration can also be hindered by functionality that doesn't work adequately. Therefore, users become quickly frustrated with non-performing features.
In addition, current mechanisms for maintaining service quality are expensive and unrepresentative of the consumer's spatial and temporal experience. Drive testing is labor intensive, simulated, and limited to pre-determined geographical routes. Network Edge-testers are expensive to deploy and maintain, offering only intrusive testing on fixed geographical locations.
Wireless carries also look to differentiate their service to critical customers by offering Service Level Agreements (SLAs). SLAs contractually guarantee a certain minimum service delivery quality to the consumers. Today, although SLAs can be constructed for the network components that deliver the service, it is not possible to monitor the service as it is actually received by the consumer.
Therefore, there exists a need to address the operational shortcomings by monitoring the actual user experience.